Sign



May 1%, 19.59 v G. E. WALTERS SIGN Filed Dec. 2, 1957 United States Patent SIGN Gerald E. Walters, Zephyr Cove, Nev. I Application December 2, 1957, Serial No. 700,151

1 Claim. (Cl. 40-128) This invention relates to signs, and more particularly to special mounting means for sign letters to hold them securely on a mounting wall while permitting them to be easily assembled and disassembled.

It is conventional to hang letters of a sign from a retainer strip having a U-shaped channel to receive a mounting plate fixed to each letter. Howevenretail head light source. The reflection is produced by the high polish of the plastic central surfaces and not by the light p1ping" character of the plastic. Thus, although the central surfaces of the letters are darkly colored, reflections from the polished central surfaces destroy the good contrast which may be produced by the use of the light ,piping. property of and colored and recessed construction of the letters in that substantial glare is produced from the polished surfaces.

According to a feature of the invention, an arrangement may be employed including a letter member, the

5' letter member having forwardly extending edges and a stores in particular, in which many of such signs are em-.

ployed, are often located near major arteries in urban street systems which are heavily traveled by large automotive vehicles such assemi-trailers; This often causes sign letters of the above-described type to become misaligned due to vibration caused simply -by a large amount of such heavy vehicular trafiic. The sign letters may also be misaligned because of vibrations emanating from other sources.

It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a sign letter arrangement by which sign letters may be easily, but securely mounted on a vertical wall'in a manner to prevent them from becoming misaligned by vibration or the like.

The present invention achieves this and other objects and overcomes the above-described and other disadvantages of the prior art by providing a letter member; a mounting wall; and means for mounting the letter member in an inclined position on the mounting wall, the letter member normally extending downwardly and rear, wardly from the mounting means and thereby being held at its lower end in stressed engagement with the wall to prevent vibration from changing its position on the wall.

An outstanding feature of the invention resides in the fact that most all new retail store construction includes the provision of poster moulding completely around the 3 1- interior on the walls of the store building. It is generally necessary to provide such a moulding completely around the interior of the building because it is often necessary to rearrange the departments of a store. This same moulding may be employed as a support for sign letters of the invention.

An additional advantage of the invention is also achieved through the use of the above-described arrangement. As explained in copending application Serial No. 683,504, filed September 12, 1957, by Gerald E. Walters for Sign Arrangement, a problem exists in mounting spe cial individual plastic letters made with forwardly extending edges and polished recessed central surfaces and which are made of a dark colored clear plastic sheet material made in a manner to cause light entering the central surfaces to be reflected internally and thereby to emanate from the forwardly extending edges in contrast to the dark color of the central surfaces.

It is conventional to mount such letters adjacent one another to provide a vertical sign on an interior wall of a store building having an overhead light source, for example, such as a group of four longitudinal four-foot fluorescent tubes that are spaced from the wall. However, when this arrangement is used, the central surfaces of the letters reflect the light emanating from the overpolished recessed central surface, the letter member being made of a dark colored clear plastic sheet material, a mounting wall, a transverse member connected from an upper portion of the letter member and extending rearwardly therefrom, a channel strip fixed to the mounting wall having a horizontal U-shaped channel, and a mountingplate fixed to the transverse member, the mounting plate having a flat rear surface and a lower portion to fit snugly in the channel, the sign letter member, when unstressed, extending rearwardly beyond the plane of the rearsurface of the mounting plate, whereby the lower portion of the sign letter bears against the mounting wall when themounting plate is positioned in the channel, thereby to prevent vibration from changing the position of the letter member on the wall, the transverse member being. horizontal and perpendicular to the mounting plate and disposed at an acute angle with respect to the letter member to hold itin an inclined position and thereby to improve the contrast of the light emitting edges -.of the letter with its dark central surface by lowering the --angle at which light is reflected by the polished central surface from an overhead source, glare thereby being prevented therefrom to persons viewing the letter from positions'spaced from the mounting wall. Thus, not only is misalignment-prevented by this secure construction of the invention, but also contrast of the special letters is improved by the inclination of the letters to reflect light vertically: downwardly from the polished central surfaces of the letters.

These. and other objects and advantages of the present invention will'be better understood when considered with the following description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings made a part of this specification, wherein several embodiments are illustrated by way of ex ample. The device ofthe present inventionis by no means limitedto the specific embodiments illustrated in the drawings since they are shown merely for purposes of description.

Fig. 1 is a side elevational view of the sign letter of the invention with its support;

Fig. 2 is a perspective view of a retainer strip employed in the support shown in Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a perspective view of a sign letter and its directly attached support; and

Fig. 4 is a side elevational view of the slgn letter and its attached support shown in Fig. 3.

In the drawings in Fig. 1 a sign letter T indicated at 10 is shown having a transverse member 12 connected to an upper portion of it and a mounting plate 14 fixed to the transverse member 12. A retainer strip 18 is then fixed to a mounting wall 22 by means-of screws 20 shown in Fig. 2. Retainer strip 18 is U-shaped having a channel at 16 to receive a lower portion of mounting plate 14 extending below transverse member 12. The letter 10 is provided with forwardly extending edges 28 and a polished and recessed central surface 26. The entire letter is made of a dark colored clear plastic sheet material made with a material to cause light entering the central surface 26 to be reflected internally and thereby to emanate from the forwardly extending edge 28 in contrast to the dark color of the central surface 26.

As shown in Fig. 1, letter is mounted at an incline with respect to mounting wall 22. Hence, when letter 10 is mounted in a retail store having an overhead light, light reflected from the polished central surface 26 is reflected substantially vertically downwardly and not away from the wall 22 into the eyes of the viewing public.

Preferably retainer strip 18 is made of sheet metal. However, transverse member 12 is preferably made of a clear plastic material, the same material of which letter 10 is made except that it is not colored. The same is true of mounting plate 14. Transverse member 12 may be fixed to letter 10 and mounting plate 14 by any conventional method or means.

As stated previously, letter 10 would normally slide back and forth in the channel 16 of retainer strip 18 and become misaligned by rocking about the longitudinal axis of transverse member 12. However, in accordance with the present invention a lower portion 24 of letter 10 ex tends beyond the plane of the relatively flat rear surface of mounting plate 14. As a matter of fact, it extends more than the distance of the thickness of the retainer strip 18. Thus, as the letter 10 is mounted on the wall 22, a portion 24 bears against the wall and maintains the letter tight to the wall, the letter 10, transverse piece 12, and mounting plate 14 all being stressed in this condition. That is, the elastic character of the plastic of which the letter 10, transverse piece 12 and mounting plate 14 are made provides a snap action by which the letter 10 is held rigidly against wall 22 at lower portion 24. The plane of the rear surface of mounting plate 14 is indicated at 30 in Fig. 4. A plane parallel to plane 30 and tangent to the rear surface 24 of letter 10 is spaced a distance d from plane 30 and is indicated at 32. Thus, in its unstressed condition, the lower portion 24 of letter 10 extends beyond the plane 30 an extent sufficient to cause it to be put under stress when the mounting plate 14 is maintained in a fixed position relative to mounting wall 22.

As can be seen in Fig. 4, the letter 10 may be mounted in channel 16 of retainer strip 18 by pressing it against wall 22 at lower portion 24 and mounting plate 14 against retainer strip 18. Thus, letter 10 is sprung away from transverse member 12 until mounting plate 14 lies flat against retainer strip 18. Then, the whole structure is moved downwardly to slide mounting plate 14 into channel 16 of retainer strip 18.

Although only one specific embodiment of the invention has been shown and described, changes and modifications of the invention will, of course, suggest themselves to those skilled in the art. The true scope of the invention therefore is not to be limited to the specific embodiment shown and described, but is defined only in the appended claim.

What is claimed is:

A sign letter arrangement comprising: a letter member, said letter member having forwardly extending edges and a polished recessed central surface, said letter member being made of a dark colored clear plastic sheet material made in a manner to cause light entering said central surface to be reflected internally to emanate from said forwardly extending edges in contrast to the dark color of said central surface; a mounting wall; a transverse member connected from an upper portion of said letter member and extending rearwardly therefrom; a channel strip fixed to said mounting wall having a horizontal U-shaped channel; and a mounting plate fixed to said transverse member, said mounting plate having a flat rear surface and a lower portion to fit snugly in said channel, said sign letter member, when unstressed, extending rearwardly beyond the plane of the rear surface of said mounting plate, whereby the lower portion of said letter member bears against said mounting wall when said mounting plate is positioned in said channel, thereby to prevent vibration from changing the position of said letter member on said wall, said transverse member being horizontal and perpendicular to said mounting plate and disposed at an acute angle with respect to said letter member to hold it in an inclined position and thereby to improve the contrast of the light emitting edges of the letter with its dark central surface by lowering the angle at which light is reflected by said polished central surface from an overhead source, glare thereby being prevented therefrom to persons viewing the letter from positions spaced from said mounting wall.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Re. 15,847 Gee et al. May 27, 1924 355,132 Brown et al. Dec. 28, 1886 1,182,145 Cornwall May 9, 1916 2,595,970 McGill May 6, 1952 2,602,254 Dickmann July 8, 1952 2,637,927 Gadomski May 12, 1953 2,746,189 Bass May 22, 1956 FOREIGN PATENTS 187,147 Great Britain Oct. 19, 1922 

